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IBM FlashSystem 7300 | Data
sheet
Highlights
• Deploy enterprise-grade
functionality and data
resilience
• Enhance cyber resilience
without compromising
application performance
• Leverage NVMe
performance in one costefficient system
• Build easy-to-manage,
high-performance hybrid
cloud environments
• Extend data services across
more than 500
heterogeneous systems
• Transform data economics
using sophisticated data
reduction
• Leverage AI to optimize
storage management and
streamline issue resolution
• Deploy leading-edge
storage solutions with
confidence using IBM
FlashWatch
• Increase cost-efficiency
with IBM Storage Utility
programs
Cost-efficient storage made simple for
hybrid cloud
To take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced
applications, real-time Big Data analytics, and cloud
architectures that require higher levels of system
performance and storage capacity, enterprises around the
globe are rapidly moving to modernize legacy IT
infrastructures. But for many organizations, staff resources
and expertise are not abundant, and cost-efficiency is a top
priority. These organizations have important investments in
existing infrastructure that they want to maximize. They need
enterprise-grade solutions that optimize cost-efficiency while
simplifying the pathway to modernization. IBM FlashSystem
7300 is designed specifically for these requirements and use
cases, and to deliver cyber resilience without compromising
application performance.
Built with IBM Spectrum Virtualize software – part of the IBM
Spectrum Storage family – IBM FlashSystem 7300 provides
feature-rich, enterprise-grade storage solutions that help
enterprises effectively support the workloads and
applications that are crucial to their business success. IBM
FlashSystem storage arrays can handle massive volumes of
data, enable rapid and flexible cloud services
deployments, provide rock-solid data resilience, and deliver
the performance needed to gain insights from the latest AI
and analytics technologies with all-flash or hybrid-flash
solutions.
IBM FlashSystem 7300 provides the foundation for
implementing a cost-efficient storage infrastructure that also
delivers extraordinary functionality, performance, and cyber
resilience. Designed with new, large capacity IBM FlashCore®
technology and leveraging end-to-end Non-Volatile Memory
Express (NVMe) protocol, IBM FlashSystem 7300 accelerates
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business-critical applications and real-time analytics.
The IBM Spectrum Virtualize foundation of IBM FlashSystem 7300 provides comprehensive
data services across all managed systems, including encryption, immutable copies, cyber
resilience, automated tiering, and data reduction pools. In addition, the systems include
powerful new technology that enables efficient, cost-effective hybrid cloud storage solutions.
IBM FlashSystem 7300
Highly scalable, high-performance storage
IBM FlashSystem 7300 is designed to deliver flexible, affordable scaling and performance. It
features support for NVMe over Fabrics for the highest end-to-end storage performance. The
solutions utilize IBM FlashCore-enhanced storage media that provides extraordinary flash
density and storage capacity while achieving latency as low as 50 microseconds. Purposeengineered FlashCore Modules (FCM) utilize powerful inline, hardware-accelerated compression
technology that provides consistent data compression without performance impact across the
full range of workloads. FCM generation 3 supports enhanced compression that enables storing
up 116TB in a single FCM. These FCMs are designed to support FIPS 140-3 Level 1 encryption
with IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager or Gemalto SafeNet KeySecure centralized key
management and full hot-swap capabilities.
You can choose FCMs in multiple capacities or you can opt for industry-standard NVMe or
Storage Class Memory (SCM) drives, with the capability to support all three drive types
simultaneously within the array. This means that using the always-on inline high-performance
data compression in the FCMs or Data Reduction Pool (DRP) technology with the industrystandard drives, effective capacities can range up to 2.2 petabytes in a single 2U enclosure, with
the ability to cluster, scale-out, or scale up capacity and performance.
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The control enclosure leverages four 10-core Intel Cascade Lake processors, with 1.5TB
memory cache available. Each controller contains a hardware compression accelerator based
on Intel QuickAssist technology with an available second accelerator. IBM FlashSystem 7300
supports host attachment using 16/32 Gbps fibre channel, and 10/25 Gbps and 100Gbps
Ethernet with iSCSI and NVMe RDMA options. Up to four IBM FlashSystem 7300 arrays can be
clustered and operated as a single system, with 12G, 24G, and 92G SAS expansion enclosures
available that can support up to 368 SAS drives per array controller.
Rock solid data resilience
As systems became linked with external networks, organizations are adopting a “defense-indepth” security mode so that if the perimeter was breached, there were additional layers of
security to protect critical information. IBM FlashSystem 7300 provides advanced capabilities
that can help maximize data protection, security, and high availability to significantly reduce the
risk of disruption and financial losses due to user errors, malicious destruction, or ransomware
attacks. FlashSystem 7300 delivers the capability to enable this level of protection while also
delivering high performance for applications.
With Safeguarded Copy, IBM protects your valued data form cyberattacks with immutable and
isolated copies that are hidden, non-addressable and cannot be altered or deleted. In the event
of an attack, these copies can be quickly restored to support recovery. Customized to your
particular application mix, IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault builds on IBM Safeguarded Copy to
help reduce cyber attack recovery times from days to hours. In addition, physical isolation
layers can also be created by storing sensitive copies in immutable storage, cloud environments
or off-line write-once read many (WORM) tape devices to provide physical air-gap protection.
Moving data is one of the most common causes of planned downtime. The IBM Spectrum
Virtualize technology within IBM FlashSystem 7300 enables data movement from one storage
system to another, or between arrays while maintaining access to the data. This function can be
used when replacing older storage with newer storage, as part of load-balancing work, or when
moving data in a tiered storage infrastructure from disk drives to flash.
IBM HyperSwap® function supports storage and servers in two or three data centers. In this
configuration, IBM FlashSystem solutions enable servers at each data center to access data
concurrently, with automated switch-over in case of failure, when it is implemented by IBM Lab
Services, IBM can guarantee 100% availability. When combined with server data mobility
functions such as VMware vMotion or IBM PowerVM Live Partition Mobility, HyperSwap
technology enables non-disruptive storage and virtual machine mobility between data centers
that can be up to 300 km (186 miles) apart.
And with more organizations looking to adopt data resilience solutions that go beyond simple
data backup and recovery, the IBM Spectrum Protect portfolio is the perfect complement for
IBM FlashSystem. It provides unified end-to-end workload protection, both on-premises and in
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the cloud, including applications, VMs, file systems, SaaS workloads, AWS EC2 instances, and
containers.
Enhanced functionality
IBM FlashSystem 7300 uses IBM Spectrum Virtualize technology that provides a wide range of
market-leading data services to help ensure that applications run without disruption, even when
changes are made to the storage infrastructure.
IBM FlashSystem 7300 also extends data services to more than 500 heterogeneous storage
systems. When virtualized, data in an external storage system becomes part of the IBM
FlashSystem solution and can be managed in the same way as internal drives. External systems
inherit all the IBM Spectrum Virtualize functional richness and ease-of-use features, including
advanced replication, high-performance thin provisioning, encryption, compression,
deduplication, and IBM Easy Tier® that improve administrator productivity and boost storage
utilization while also enhancing and extending the value of existing storage investments.
IBM FlashSystem 7300 can accelerate efficiency and business value. Non-disruptive data
migration shortens time-to-value from weeks or months to days, minimizes downtime for
migration, eliminates the cost of add-on migration tools, and helps eliminate penalties and
additional maintenance charges for lease extensions. The result can be real cost savings to your
business.
Simplified management
IBM FlashSystem 7300 with IBM Spectrum Virtualize is designed to simplify hybrid cloud
storage environments from the very start. The systems utilize a modern user interface for
centralized management. With this single interface, administrators can perform configuration,
management, and service tasks in a consistent manner over multiple storage systems – even
from different vendors – vastly simplifying management and helping reduce the risk of errors.
Plug-ins to support VMware vCenter help enable more efficient, consolidated management
while a REST API and Ansible support help enable automated operations. The interface is
consistent with other members of the IBM Spectrum Storage family, to simplify tasks for
administrators and help reduce the risk of error.
Hybrid cloud enabled
The challenge for organizations these days is how to take advantage of hybrid cloud technology
without the expense of replacing current storage with cloud-capable storage systems. IBM
Spectrum Virtualize in IBM FlashSystem 7300 enables the use of cloud storage for disaster
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recovery, dramatically speeds deployment of hybrid cloud configurations, and helps slash
storage costs. The consistent approach achieved by combining IBM FlashSystem 7300 with IBM
Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud offers multiple ways to create hybrid cloud solutions
between on-premises private clouds and the public cloud. It enables real-time storage-based
data replication and disaster recovery, as well as data migration between local storage and IBM
Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. And thanks to its software-defined
storage nature, IBM Spectrum Virtualize allows storage administration at a cloud service
provider’s site in the same way as on-premises, regardless of the type of storage.
Easier server virtualization and containerization
The IBM Spectrum Virtualize functionality in IBM FlashSystem 7300 complements server
virtualization technologies such as PowerVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Kubernetes,
and Docker. Similar to provisioning virtualized servers, provisioning capacity with IBM
FlashSystem 7200 is designed to become an almost entirely automated function.
Containers are an open-source technology that wraps applications with everything needed to
run in any environment. Containerization is a key enabling technology for flexibly delivering
workloads to private and public cloud and DevOps. IBM FlashSystem 7300 supports Red Hat
OpenShift and Kubernetes container environments, accelerating the deployment of persistent
volumes with the IBM block storage CSI driver, certified by Red Hat and IBM.
Efficiency at the core
As well as inline hardware compression with FCM, the FlashSystem 7300 offers data reduction
pools (DRP). When applied to new or existing storage systems, clients can significantly increase
usable capacity while maintaining consistent application performance. These data reduction
technologies can help eliminate or drastically reduce costs for storage acquisition, rack space,
power, and cooling and can extend the useful life of existing storage assets.
In addition to the FCM inline hardware compression, DRP further offers:
Block deduplication that works across all the storage in a data reduction pool to minimize the
number of identical blocks
Compression technology that provides consistent performance across application workload
patterns
SCSI UNMAP support, that de-allocates physical storage when operating systems delete logical
storage constructs such as files in a file system.
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Automated storage tiering with Easy Tier can help improve performance and lower costs by
enabling the more efficient use of flash storage or multiple tiers of drives. Easy Tier
automatically identifies more active data and moves that data to faster storage such as Storage
Class Memory and FlashCore Modules. This helps organizations leverage flash storage for the
data that can benefit the most. Easy Tier can use any supported flash storage to accelerate any
other storage, including the new SCM drives. This approach delivers greater benefits from flash
storage than tiering systems that are limited to just a single disk system.
In addition to built-in cost-efficiency features, IBM FlashSystem 7300 capacity can be procured
using the IBM Storage Utility pricing model. This offering allows you to predict monthly data
capacity costs and only pay for the capacity you need, whether your data grows or shrinks. No
need to over-purchase or lease large amounts of capacity for “just in case” needs. Simply use
the data that your business needs and the IBM Storage Utility offering will take care of the rest.
Advanced replication
The IBM Spectrum Virtualize functionality in IBM FlashSystem 7300 is designed to enable
administrators to apply across all systems under management a single set of advanced
network-based replication services that operate in a consistent manner, regardless of the type
of storage being used.
When used with other IBM FlashSystem 7300 arrays, volumes can be replicated across 3 sites,
offering both high availability and data recovery using synchronous and asynchronous data
communication.
IBM FlashCopy® functionality is designed to create an almost-instant copy (or “snapshot”) of
active data that can be used for backup purposes or for parallel processing activities. Up to 256
copies of data may be created.
IBM Spectrum Protect is designed to perform near-instant application-aware snapshot backups
using FlashCopy local replication, but with minimal impact to IBM DB2, Oracle, SAP, VMware,
Microsoft SQL Server, or Microsoft Exchange databases.
IBM FlashSystem 7300 also supports remote mirroring, enabling organizations to create copies
of data at remote locations for disaster recovery. Replication can occur between any systems
built with IBM Spectrum Virtualize and can involve any supported storage, including cloud.
Support for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager helps speed disaster recovery.
For IP replication, IBM Spectrum Virtualize uses innovative Bridgeworks WANrockIT technology
to optimize the use of network bandwidth and can compress data being transmitted to help
reduce networking costs and improve remote replica currency.
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AI-powered storage visibility, insight, and control
IBM Storage Insights and Storage Insights Pro provide critical system analysis and optimization
capabilities that enhance your IBM FlashSystem experience, such as:
A single dashboard so you can see the status of all your block storage at a glance
System information gathered from approximately 23 million data points so you can make better,
more informed decisions
Monitoring of Brocade and Cisco switches and fabrics to help identify saturation, congestion,
and fabric errors that might impact your storage performance
AI-enhanced analytics that leverage knowledge from over two exabytes of storage under
management to better predict and help prevent problems before they impact your business
When support is needed, the ability to easily open a ticket, upload log information and view
open tickets
Detailed configuration data available to IBM specialists to help close tickets quickly.
Delivered as a service from IBM Cloud at no charge, Storage Insights is quick and easy to set up
and requires no ongoing software maintenance. IBM Storage Insights Pro is an upgrade that
provides more detailed information and additional capabilities.
Greater Confidence
To enhance the IBM FlashSystem 7300 acquisition, deployment, and operational experience,
IBM offers a suite of programs collectively called IBM FlashWatch. This suite of programs
includes high availability, data reduction, and flash endurance guarantees; all-inclusive
licensing; Storage Expert Care and cloud-based analytics; cloud-like utility pricing; storage
upgrade options; and free data migration for the first 90 days. IBM FlashWatch increases
confidence in purchasing, owning, and upgrading IBM Storage solutions.
IBM Storage Expert Care Basic, Advanced, and Premium service and support are available.
Simply select the level of support and term of service to support your business needs.
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IBM FlashSystem 7300 at a glance
Models
• Control enclosures: 4657 Models 924, U74
• Expansion enclosures: 4657 Models 12G, 24G, 92G
Clustering
IBM FlashSystem 7300 systems can cluster for high availability HyperSwap
configurations as well as for scale out.
Software
• IBM Spectrum Virtualize
• IBM Storage Insights
Host interface
Per control enclosure :
• Up to 24 x 16/32 Gbps Fibre Channel (FC, NVMeoF)
• 8 x 10 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI)
• Up to 12 x 10/25 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI and NVMe RDMA)
• Up to 12 x 100 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI and NVMe RDMA)
User interface
GUI, CLI, REST API
Maximum drives
supported
•
Twenty-four 2.5” NVMe drives per control enclosure
• Twelve 3.5” SAS drives per 12G expansion enclosure
• Twenty-four 2.5” SAS drives per 24G expansion enclosure
• Ninety-two 2.5” or 3.5” SAS drives per 92G expansion enclosure
• Up to a maximum of 368 SAS drives in expansion enclosures per
control enclosure
Supported NVMe drives
FlashCore Modules (FCM):
• 4.8 TB, 9.6 TB, 19.2 TB and 38.4 TB with hardware compression
Storage Class Memory (SCM):
• 1.6 TB
Industry Standard NVMe:
• 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB, and 30.72 TB
Supported SAS drives
2.5-inch SAS SSD:
• 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB, and 30.72 TB
2.5-inch SAS HDD:
• 1.2 TB, 1.8 TB and 2.4 TB 10k SAS
• 2 TB 7.2k nearline SAS
3.5-inch SAS HDD:
• 6 TB, 8 TB, 10 TB, 12 TB, 14 TB, 16 TB and 18 TB 7.2k nearline SAS
RAID levels
DRAID 1 and 6 with dynamic DRAID expansion
Maximum IOPS (4K read
hit)
3.5 million
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Minimum latency (4K read
hit)
Maximum IOPS (4K read
miss)
Maximum bandwidth
(256KB read miss)
Processors
<50 μs
1 million
45
GB/s
Four 10-core 2.4GHz Intel Cascade Lake processors per control
enclosure
• Up to sixteen 10-core processors in a 4-way clustered system
•
Cache
•
Fans and power supplies
Fully redundant, hot swappable
Rack support
Standard 19-Inch
Advanced features
•
From 256 GB up to 1,536 GB per control enclosure
• Up to 6 TB in a 4-way clustered system
Data reduction via thin provisioning, unmap, compression and
deduplication
• Data-at-rest AES-XTS 256 encryption
• Safeguarded Copy
• Easy Tier
• Data migration
• External virtualization
Replication features
•
•
•
•
•
•
FlashCopy
Metro Mirror (Synchronous)
Global Mirror (asynchronous)
Global Mirror with change volumes
3 Sites replication
Hyperswap (High availability)
Additional available
advanced features
•
•
•
•
•
•
IBM
IBM
IBM
IBM
IBM
IBM
FlashSystem Cyber Vault
Storage Insights Pro
Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud
Spectrum Control
Spectrum Protect
Spectrum Protect Plus
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Warranty
FlashSystem 7300 (machine type 4657) hardware warranty:
• 1-year limited warranty
• IBM CRU and On-Site, 9x5 Next Business Day
• IBM Storage Expert Care Basic:
⚬ Available in 1-5 years
⚬ IBM On-Site Repair, 9x5 Next Business Day
⚬ Licensed Machine Code Subscription and Support
⚬ IBM Storage Expert Care Services:
▪ Installation, usage, and configuration support line
▪ Predictive alerting
▪ Automated ticket management
• IBM Storage Expert Care Advanced:
⚬ Available in 1-5 years
⚬ IBM On-Site Repair, 24x7 Same Day
⚬ Licensed Machine Code Subscription and Support
⚬ IBM Storage Expert Care Services:
▪ Installation, usage, and configuration support line
▪ Proactive issue resolution
▪ Predictive alerting
▪ Automated ticket management
• IBM Storage Expert Care Premium:
⚬ Available in 1-5 years
⚬ IBM On-Site Repair, 24x7 Same Day
⚬ Licensed Machine Code Subscription and Support
⚬ IBM Storage Expert Care Services:
▪ Guidance on installation, usage, and configuration
▪ Automated ticket management and alerting
▪ Predictive support
▪ Storage Insights Pro entitlement
▪ Remote code upgrades (two per year)
▪ Technical Account Manager
▪ 30 minutes response on severity 1 or 2 issue
Dimensions
Control enclosures
Width: 483 mm (19.0 in.)
• Depth: 850 mm (33.5 in.)
• Height: 88 mm (3.5 in.)
•
Weight, Control enclosure
Fully configured (24 drive modules installed): 46.6 kg (102.5 lb)
Supported systems
For a list of currently supported servers, operating systems, host bus
adapters, clustering applications and SAN switches and directors,
refer to the IBM System Storage Interoperation Center:
https://www.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic/interoperability.w
ss
Independent software
vendor (ISV) solutions
For a list of high-quality solutions with our partner ISVs, including
access to solution briefs and white papers, refer to the ISV Solutions
Resource Library:
https://www.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/pub/systems/whyibm/progra
ms
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Why IBM?
For more information
IBM offers a vast portfolio of hardware,
software and services to help organizations
cost-effectively address their IT
infrastructure needs. These include robust
data-storage solutions to enable always-on,
trustworthy storage, and recovery from
disaster. Because business needs shift, IBM
solutions emphasize interoperability and the
integration of new use cases or approaches,
from analytics to multi-site backup to nearinstant recovery. With IBM, organizations can
create flexible, robust and resilient storage
infrastructure to support critical operations
for smooth operations and regulatory
compliance.
Visit our solutions page to learn more about
the FlashSystem family of data systems, or
contact your IBM representative or IBM
Business Partner. If you need to be
connected, fill out this form to schedule a
consult with an IBM storage expert.
Powerful all-flash block storage solutions
that provide affordable, high-performance
enterprise-grade functionality for businesses
of all sizes. Unique IBM FlashCore Modules
provide unparalleled density, endurance, and
performance. Built with IBM Spectrum
Virtualize and the AI-powered storage
management and proactive support of IBM
Storage Insights, FlashSystem delivers
consistent rich data services across onpremises, hybrid cloud, containerized or
virtualized environments.
Additionally, IBM Global Financing provides
numerous payment options to help you
acquire the technology you need to grow
your business. We provide full lifecycle
management of IT products and services,
from acquisition to disposition. Visit:
https://www.ibm.com/financing/flash
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IBM Spectrum®
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2022.
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks of
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many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and
service names might be trademarks of IBM or other
companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is
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and select third party trademarks that might be
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referenced in this document is available at
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trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel
ction_4.
Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States
and other countries.
This document contains information pertaining to the
following IBM products which are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of IBM Corporation:
IBM®, ibm.com, IBM Cloud™, IBM Easy Tier®, IBM
All statements regarding IBM's future direction and
FlashSystem®, IBM FlashCore®, IBM FlashCopy®,
intent are subject to change or withdrawal without
IBM HyperSwap®, PartnerWorld®, IBM PowerVM®,
notice, and represent goals and objectives only.